PC Components, Peripherals And Gadget Reviews And News
Dig into our deep-dive product reviews and news of PC components from processors, to motherboards, graphics cards (GPUs), sound cards, and storage, along with other gadgets and peripherals that complete the computing experience. Whether you're a DIY PC enthusiast builder or just looking to read-up on what should be inside or connected to your next pre-built PC, here's where you'll find all the nuts and bolts sorted on what makes modern computer systems tick, as well some of the best user interface devices to go with them.
The night before the first day of CES is typically filled with numerous parties and pre-show expos loaded with hot new products and technologies. We attended one such event last night, Digital Experience, where a number of major players were peddling their wares. While at the event, we got to see a real-live NVIDIA Fermi-based graphics card...
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The more well-known industry trade shows, like CES, Computex, and E3, are not necessarily the only venues where technology journalists can get a gander at the latest-and-greatest offerings from a bevy of tech companies. Pepcom is a Florida-based company that holds mini tech trade-shows for the media throughout the year, and its most-recent...
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We like a good combo here at HotHardware, and we have a new one to add to the list. Right up there with peanut butter and jelly, Mario and Luigi, milk and cookies, we'd like to add dual GPUs and factory overclocks. If you are a regular reader, you probably already know we are fans of dual GPU video cards, and we have a strong affinity...
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Throughout most of the 1990s, Diamond Multimedia was one of the major players in the graphics card world. Their well made cards with solid performance resulted in some of the most well known brand names of the time including the Speedstar, Stealth, and Viper. After merging with S3 Incorporated in 1999, the...
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We’re willing to bet that many of you have wildly varied opinions of Dell. Some no doubt consider them a huge, monolithic corporation who pushes out generic computers without a soul; while others consider them to be pioneers of the low-cost PC movement, who (almost) single-handedly made computers available to nearly every price point....
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While the average PC enthusiast may gawk endlessly over pages of reviews of high-end power-hungry graphics cards, jaw-slackened by the frame rates and 3DMark score that he or she might find there, at the end of the month it is the low to mid-range card that is purchased most often than not. Price typically comes into consideration, but...
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With recent price cuts to current generation Radeon HD 3800 series cards, due to increased competition from new mainstream graphics cards from NVIDIA, there is a large gap in ATI's product stack between the sub-$200 Radeon HD 3870 and the now roughly $400 Radeon HD 3870 X2. Until AMD readies a new batch of GPUs to fill this hole in their...
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Like high-end graphics cards setup in multi-GPU configurations, terabyte desktop drives, and 3GHz quad-core processors, 30-inch wide screen LCDs cater to what we like to call the "enthusiast" niche. And though this niche obviously drives lower volume demand versus the mainstream, you have to remember that the enthusiast end-user...
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While doing research for this review, we realized that we had to go back nearly three years - an eternity in the PC industry - to find the last HotHardware article on optical drives. For a comparative look at technologies, back then we were using single core Pentium 4s in Intel 865/875 boards, GeForce...
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Just prior to the Radeon HD 2000 series' introduction, numerous rumors circulated regarding an ultra-high clocked ATI R600-based video card, that featured a large 1GB frame buffer. Some went so far as to say the GPU would be clocked at or near 1GHz. Spy shots even cropped up on the web showing the card in all its glory. But sometime between...
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We're in the early stages of a major transition in the PC arena, much like in 2004 when Intel launched their first core logic chipset with support for DDR2 memory. This time around, however, Intel is pushing DDR3 memory with their current crop of desktop chipsets. When DDR2 memory first hit the scene, we recommended users to tread...
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While they are still not known as a tier 1 player in the motherboard market, on par with the likes of MSI, Asus, or Gigabyte, DFI is a still a highly regarded name in many circles. DFI is one of the few companies in the market which are genuinely in tune with what overclockers and enthusiasts are interested in. Their LANParty series in particular...
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Last year, we had the pleasure of taking a look at Dell's flagship Inspiron XPS M1710 notebook. Taking into account the top-notch components, excellent build quality, and best-of-class performance, we awarded the system our coveted Editor's Choice award. Dell has since returned to market with a minor refresh of the...
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When you think of the "ultimate computer upgrade", visions of powerful graphics cards, a blistering fast CPU, a spacious-high density hard drive or perhaps another Gig or two of memory to feed your ever-hungry OS might come to mind. On the surface, these are all very reasonable options, and depending on your specific usage...
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This year's DigitalLife show in New York City seemed to be just a bit more festive, a bit more "real-deal", or perhaps we should just say a bit more well-attended from both an exhibitor and audience perspective? In fact, since Ziff Davis picked up the gig, it has turned out to be like a mini-CES here on the east...
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DFI has earned a reputation over the last couple of years for producing feature-rich, enthusiast friendly motherboards. DFI's decked out LANPARTY family of motherboards in particular has become known to many around the world as a family of products that cater to the unique needs of the enthusiast and overclocking...
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For almost a year now, NVIDIA has been teasing enthusiasts with their Quad-SLI technology. It was back in January at the Consumer Electronics Show that we got our first glimpse of a Quad-SLI based system, the Dell XP 600 Renegade. That first Quad-SLI implementation consisted of four GeForce 7800 GTX GPUs, each coupled to 512MB of...
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When we last took a look at some DDR2 memory back in October of 2004, the technology was still a bit new and didn't seem to offer any tangible performance benefits over standard DDR RAM. Higher speeds could be obtained with DDR2 though, and these modules required...
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The ability to manipulate and access various types of video and audio media has become a big part of the computer life-style. What used to be reserved for those with money to spend on expensive devices and powerful computers, is now available to just about anyone with a PCI slot. Thanks to the interest in these kinds of devices, the market...
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It used to be the case that the fastest optical drive was, by default, the best. Reducing CD burn times from 12 minutes to eight and then to six was considered significant evolutionary progress. But then a barrier was encountered, where the imperfect nature of mass-produced compact discs precluded, or at least made it much more difficult,...
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Over the past year, DFI has made a name for itself with a crowd that is traditionally very hard to please. A company that once built parts strictly for the OEM / white box folks, is now catering to the enthusiast and overclocking communities with a bold, feature laden line of motherboards. DFI's "LANPARTY" products build...
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With the launch of their 900 series chipsets, and LGA775 based Pentium 4 processors, Intel introduced the use of DDR2 system memory on the desktop. DDR1 system memory had been the standard for quite a few years, and DDR2 memory had been used on the occasional...
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